CGI/Perl Support - Aurora E-Solutions

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Home: Support: CGI/Perl

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CGI/Perl Support

What is Perl?

Perl is short for "Practical Extraction and Report Language." and is a programming language.

What is CGI?

CGI is short for "Common Gateway Interface". CGI is an interface that a program uses to handle requests from a web server.

What is the path to Perl?

The path to Perl is /usr/bin/perl

Where can I upload my CGI scripts?

CGI scripts are executable only from within your cgi-bin directory (/htdocs/www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/), which is accessible on the web at yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/

Only .cgi scripts can go in your /cgi-bin/... any HTML or PHP files, etc. will not work if placed in your cgi-bin, and instead should be moved to your main web folder.

Why do I get Internal Server 500 errors?

There are several things that can cause Internal Server errors including poorly written code. Here are a few common problems that can occur when working with CGI-scripts, and how to fix them:

Make sure your path to perl is "#!/usr/bin/perl" (without the quotes) and that it is the first thing listed.
Be sure to upload your script as ASCII (text). Most FTP programs will do this automatically.
Make sure the file's permission is set correctly. You will need to chmod most files to 755. Never set a file to 777, as it is a security risk.
CGI-scripts should only be run from the cgi-bin.
CGI-scripts can only be run from the cgi-bin and sub-folders of it. Make sure you are uploading to the CGI-BIN and not your HTML folder.